Christmas in Paris
by Trogdor19
Summary: Post 4x01 AU. Logan proposes, but he gets called back to the Navy for another mission before they can talk about it. Then another mission, and another…and pretty soon it's gone from Spring Break to December. Logan finally gets 3 days leave for Christmas. Problem is, he's in Paris. Parisian Christmas reconciliation fic, anyone? [Part 1 of New and Improved S4 Series]
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: The New And Improved S4 series is a collection of stories that each start with the canon of a S4 episode and "fix it" until I like the results better. They can all be read as standalones, and they all start in canon and end in AU (but not the same AU). Not all episodes will have stories, and some episodes will require multi-chapter fixes. My goal is to take back our joy in S4 from He Who Shall Not Be Named!_

* * *

**Christmas In Paris**

* * *

**March **

[Handwritten note, left on refrigerator]

Veronica,

I got called back for a mission. Not really an emergency or anything to worry about. They probably just need me to do something small, like save the president or a raft full of puppies lost in a storm. Such is the life of an international playboy and naval intelligence officer. This has nothing to do with the proposal, so don't get like that. I asked, you said no, we're moving on. This is bad timing and orders, that's all. Should be back in a few weeks. Don't forget, Pony's not getting along so well with that new food, think we need to switch back to the old stuff.

Love,

L

**May**

[Text message]

Logan: Mission got extended, looking like end of May, maybe June before I'll make it home. Sorry again about that call from the navy. Protocol is to notify family members for any hospital admission, but it was really just a sprained wrist and a couple of bruises. They shouldn't have worried you just for that. Put a note in my file for the future that you're not to be called unless the injury is too big to be patched with Snoopy Band aids.

**June: **

[Text message]

Logan: So, the mission finally wrapped up, but they've got another one they really would like to use me for. Something about an impossible bank heist, maybe a laser maze of alarm systems or two. Logan, you're our only hope blahbetty blah, you're the only one that's ever cracked this impossible safe before, you know how these charmers get when they need you for one last mission. Anyway, I need to give them a yes or a no today and on the phone, you sounded really busy with that bomber case. Not really sure if you're ready for me to come back and ruin your professional groove with all my hot reunion sex. Text me a thumbs up or a thumbs down in between interrogations, would you?

Logan: Got your message. Guess that bomber case is really a handful, huh? Good thing I'm a highly sought after intelligence operative in my own right or I might need to take up knitting to fill all my spare time waiting for you to come home from the office. Anyway, so this mission should be just a summer fling, back by August. Until then watch your six for me, would you? It's a really attractive six, hate for a bomber to get the best of it before I get to see it again.

**September:**

[Text message]

Logan: Hey, sorry to hear you're going to be out of town during my week of leave. They had another mission, and I subbed in for a buddy so he could go home to his wife. I know I've been gone a long time, but on the phone, it sounded like you were swamped with work and the stuff with your dad and so one more mission wouldn't matter much one way or another. They're sending me out until Thanksgiving, maybe a little later. Send a picture of Pony when you get a chance. I can barely remember what the big mutt looks like at this point.

**November: **

[Text message]

Logan: Sorry about that phone call, hope it didn't make you worry. I put the note in my file about the Snoopy Band aids, but you know how the Navy bureaucracy is. They'll process the change in 6-9 years, give or take a decade. Anyway, it was just a bump on the head, nothing to worry about. My head is still a hell of a lot harder than a tire iron, especially with what passes for "iron" in Turkey these days. Also, wanted to let you know the mission got extended again. Looks like this one is going to go through January, not Thanksgiving. I still have email, though, so you can write. If you know, you want to.

**December: **

[Text message]

Logan: Good news is, I got leave for Christmas after all. Bad news is, it's only three days, and it'll be in Paris. Not really enough time to come home, which sucks. Know you're busy and probably are working through Christmas but I miss you. As to your international playboy texts, haha very funny, but there's nobody but you. Never has been. Anyway, I'll at least have cell service while I'm on leave so you can call if you get a minute free and you want to. I don't want to call and have your phone ring when you're hidden in somebody's cupboard or something. Happy Christmas, you better have bought Pony lots of toys from me so the big mutt doesn't think I died or something.

#

Logan strode down the sidewalk, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets as he ignored the picturesque light posts glowing softly against the night, the tiny cars zooming by along the curb. Probably he should have taken a taxi. Usually, he loved to hear the Parisian cab drivers cursing in vicious, intimate detail in a language he only half understood. He liked their enthusiasm, and how equally they hated everyone.

But tonight, he wasn't in the mood to be cheered up by acerbic cab drivers, and he was too twitchy to sit still. The five mile walk back to his hotel might take the edge off of a Christmas spent in a city that didn't even have snow, half a world away from the woman who was barely returning his text messages these days.

Technically, he wasn't alone. Kirby and Gus were in a hotel down the street, and they all had plans for Christmas dinner tomorrow. His CO had put him in for another medal, though the ceremony wouldn't be for months. He had people who cared about him, he had respect that he'd earned through blood, sweat, and a lot of quick thinking. He had the memory of those six diplomat's kids' faces that he'd rescued last week. Not a mark on any of them, and he still remembered how he'd made the youngest laugh with an impromptu puppet show.

All that, and he was alone on Christmas. He could act the naval hero all he wanted but it didn't cover up that he was apparently still the type no one really wanted as family, just as he had been even back when he still had living blood relatives. They'd always had more important parties to go to on Christmas, too.

Nearly a year later and Veronica's _no_ still rang in his ears. Her rejection of him, and a life together. Proof that she still didn't trust him not to be like all those lying, cheating dirtbags she photographed every week.

He passed a bar, and his feet slowed. What did it matter if he got blinding drunk on Christmas Eve, if his fist found a face that hadn't first been sanctioned by the US Navy? He was the kind of guy whose diamond solitaire got refused, even when the girl in question was still warm and pliant from all the sex they'd just had. Even when he'd deliberately planned the timing so she'd be primed by a long deployment apart to miss him, if she was ever going to. Even when he carried a ring around for months, waiting for her to be the first to drop a hint, only to misread her intentions when she finally brought it up.

Logan was the one no one wanted, and all these years of trying to be better hadn't gotten him shit except a bunch of scars and medals that he gave equally few fucks about. He turned toward the bar, but as soon as his fist cinched tight around the handle, he remembered his therapist's voice. Telling him that guilt was just another tool his demons used to drag him back into acting like the old psychotic jackass he used to be. Believing in his own worthlessness only kept him behaving in ways that proved it all over again.

He let go of the bar's door. Brushed his hands down the front of his coat to press the crisp uniform beneath against his skin. He wasn't Logan Echolls, legendary fuckup and rejected would-be fiancé. He was a representative of the US Navy and anything he did in this uniform would reflect on the organization he respected like he respected few things on earth.

It would be back to the hotel then, and a quiet night. Maybe catch up on all the sleep he hadn't been getting since oh, about spring break time.

He'd thought, maybe at Christmas he could go home and see her, and it would have been long enough for it all to have blown over. But she hadn't even responded to his text, saying he'd be in Paris instead. He knew how glued to her phone Veronica was. Placing calls to suspects, googling clues, checking in on her dad, whose memory he knew was failing even from her sparse calls and emails over the last nine months. There was no fucking way she hadn't seen that text, and how long did it take to respond and say, "Okay, see ya next year?"

He'd thought if he stayed away long enough, gave her time to "do whatever" like she used to need to in high school, then she would cool down and they could both forget he'd dumbly pushed for more instead of being satisfied that he was already dating the love of his life.

The façade of his hotel appeared, and he scowled. Five miles hadn't been nearly long enough to shake the twitchiness out of his legs. Maybe this place had a weight room? Didn't seem likely, in a Paris hotel. Still, the only way he was going to be able to live inside his skin for three empty days was to make his muscles burn enough that they matched the churning fire inside his stomach.

He shoved open the door to the stairwell and jogged up fourteen flights to get to his room. It was barely a start on what he needed, but it would have to do. He shrugged off his coat and draped it over his arm, sweating under the collar of his uniform from the climb. What he needed to do for these three days wasn't get dead drunk and go on some kind of destructive rampage across Paris. Instead, he needed to find some way to come to terms with the idea that it hadn't worked. Him and Veronica.

If she didn't even care to see him on Christmas, he had to face that she wasn't cooling off…she was just waiting for him to come home so she could break up with him in person.

A lifetime later and he felt like an entirely different person than he'd been as a teenager, and she still didn't love him the way he loved her.

He swiped his keycard and as soon as he opened the door, a bolt of something _wrong _had his back to the wall. He tossed down his coat, drew his weapon and scanned the room.

Someone had been here all right: that was obvious by the Christmas tree. Which had not been there when he left to get dinner. Neither had the three red-foil wrapped boxes—each big enough to hold a hotel-eviscerating amount of C4—or the ice bucket and magnum of champagne next to the tree.

_If I die now, I never see her again._

_Fourteen floors, maybe a hundred rooms per floor, 1-4 people per room, plus staff. If those packages are bombs, how many people are about to die for my worthless ass?_

Logan didn't even have to make an effort to press his first two thoughts to the back of his mind. Long years of training in war zones—his childhood, Kandahar, then the seas of the Middle East—had made it easier than breathing to act first, think later.

Living room, clear.

Bedroom, clear.

Bathroom, clear.

Balcony, clear.

He clicked the safety back on his pistol before he came back to the living room of his suite to examine the evidence at hand. If he were Veronica, no doubt he'd have figured out the answer already, but all he had was a full magazine of bullets and nowhere to put them. He was alone, so he didn't bother to pretend he wouldn't have welcomed the fight.

Instead, he ran an analytical eye over the staged tableau in his living room, weighing the possibilities. Most of them led right back to murder. It had been nine months of action-packed missions staged against crooked diplomats and terrorists and traitors and billionaire expats intent on stirring the domestic pot. The question, as per usual for an Echolls, wasn't who would want him dead but rather, who _wouldn't?_

The only thing that was keeping him from calling the bomb squad was the ice bucket. First, because it had no ice, which was an overlooked detail that had Kirby written all over it.

Kirby was one of his only navy buddies who knew his whole story. The navy didn't allow aliases, or going easy on busting each other's balls, so everyone knew he was an Echolls and everything that meant. He could tell dead girlfriend jokes with the best of them, nowdays.

But Kirby knew his personal life was even more barren than you'd expect from a run of the mill orphan, at least until the last few years with Veronica. Kirby was the one who had been shooting Logan sad looks every time Logan checked his phone since they got into port, the silence of no text messages received even more conspicuous than the glances themselves.

Kirby was the one person in France who would go to the trouble to get him a tree, and presents, and then forget to get ice for the goddamn ice bucket. It had his earnest Indiana farm boy flavor all over it. As did the mid-priced brand of the champagne. Like somebody wanted to make a Grand Holiday Gesture, but cringed at how high the upper range of prices soared. Nobody hauled in a tree up fourteen floors of stairs—fucking tiny Parisian elevators—then copped out on the gesture with the vinyl-siding subdivision level of champagne. Well, nobody other than a farmer's kid who'd had a childhood that put the dirt in "dirt poor."

Logan holstered his gun and pulled out his phone to call Kirby.

"No ice, bitch?" he asked without a greeting. "It's like you don't even love me at all. Now get your homely ass up here and help me drink this. Everybody knows drinking champagne alone dooms you to seven years single."

A subtle beep sounded and the hotel door clicked open. Logan dropped his phone with his navy buddy's voice coming through the speaker, and whipped out his gun, dropping to one knee for a steadier stance.

Ice rattled against plastic and the intruder froze, then drawled, "It's a good thing I know you're not quick on the trigger, or I'd be pretty nervous right now."

He couldn't move. All he could do was stare, but when he remembered to take his finger off the trigger before a stray tremor ruined his life forever, he found it had already jumped out of the trigger guard all on its own.

"Have to admit," Veronica said. "This isn't the way I'd hoped to get you back on one knee, but I suppose it's no more than I deserve." She offered a shaky smile, the ice rattling in her bucket as she shifted her weight. "Too soon for proposal jokes?"

Logan thumbed the safety back on and chucked the gun without a second glance, exploding up off the floor and across the room to her. The ice bucket erupted when he caught her up in his arms, the cubes going flying and the plastic bucket getting caught between them, its sides bending in from the pressure of Logan's arms crushing Veronica's body toward his. He swung her around, the ice bucket popping out somewhere around their knees when the pressure got to be too much.

She laughed, hugging him so tightly around his neck that he was pretty sure the arm of her sweater had left some rug burn. Also, he did not care. He buried his face in her neck, taking huge, heaving breaths and fuck, there was a small possibility he was about to cry while wearing the uniform of the US Navy. Not ideal.

Especially on Christmas.

As for his neck, it was being kissed. Repeatedly. By a breathless Veronica.

He stopped their spinning and held dead still with ice cubes melting at their feet, every one of his cells focused on the sensation of her lips. But as if the stillness had brought them out of the twirling-oh-my-god-you're-here phase and back into normal reality, she stiffened.

_Time out apparently over. _

He bent his knees to set her back on her feet.

"You're here!" He ran a hand back over his closely-cropped hair, wondering where his uniform cap had gone. "I mean, are you the victim of a Rudolph drive-by kidnapping or some other sleigh-related mishap, or is this a voluntary teleportation to Paris?"

A flurry of sounds from across the room made him remember his telephone and he crossed the room to pick it up to Kirby yelling at him.

"No emergency, don't come up, man. Veronica's um, here." A smile almost flickered across his face at his buddy's response. "Shut up. Anyway, call you tomorrow." He hung up and came back to the foyer. "Sorry, forgot I was on a call when you came in."

"Was it that pesky president you rescued?"

The smile made it onto his face this time, at the reference to the note he'd left on the fridge when he very first left. "Ah, I left that fucker to swing. Went for the puppies instead."

"Good choice."

She dropped to one knee and his already-overtaxed heart took an express elevator straight to his throat. At least until she picked up his white dress-uniform hat and rose back to her feet, placing it gently on his head.

"The effect isn't the same without the hat," she explained with another very-not-Veronica-like wobbly smile.

_You should only wear this. _

He could still remember what she'd said the first time she'd seen him in his dress whites, and he cleared his throat, that memory so precious in his mind he was afraid to even think it right now, when everything between them seemed so precarious. "So you, uh, came."

"Of course I did. It's Christmas." She was looking up at him like her heart was breaking. "You weren't home. So, a bunch of red eye flights and a maxed-out credit card later…" She did a little tap dance that ended with a twirl, outspread arms, and a smile from Logan so big he literally could not help it.

"Didn't know tap dancing was in your repertoire."

"Dance team. Far as I can remember, you watched our practices pretty closely. The old memory going just from that little bump on the head?"

His smile disappeared at the reference to his November text. "Didn't know you'd gotten that one. You didn't answer."

She glared. "What was I supposed to say, when I'm not allowed to kill anyone for giving my boyfriend a concussion? When you're out at work again before I can even track down which hospital you're being held at, because they didn't even give me a goddamn _continent _name to work with?"

He blinked. "You tried to track the hospital? I told you it was just a little bump on the head."

"Oh? I suppose that's why they had to shave part of your head for the stitches?" She pointed to the spot above his right ear. "The buzz cut hasn't quite grown in yet, Lieutenant."

He shook his head and took a step back. "Look, I'm not sure what role I'm supposed to be playing in this bit. Am I reassuring my concerned girlfriend, or hearing your opening arguments for why we're breaking up, or defending my dangerous career choice?"

She let out a breath. "Sorry. I'm not, um…I meant to be better. By the time I got here. At this." She bent and swiftly began gathering fallen ice cubes into the ice bucket.

Logan knelt and caught her hand. "Better at what?"

Her fingers tightened and the melting ice cubes dripped chilly water over both their hands. "Everything," she whispered.

Logan sat down on the floor, ignoring the lump of a melting ice cube under his ass, and hauled her into his lap. "You're here," he growled. "And assuming you didn't bribe someone to carry a Christmas tree fourteen floors up a tiny Parisian stairwell just to dump my ass, I'm pretty sure there's not a goddamn thing on earth that could make you any more perfect than you already are."

Veronica was shaking. Even with him holding her as tight as he could, even with her tears leaving tiny damp pinpricks against his neck. Even now, with both of them not just on the same continent but finally, _finally_ in the same room.

"Is that what you think? That I came here to break up with you? _Dammit_, Logan." Her voice cracked and the pinpricks of her tears became full droplets.

He rubbed her back, not sure what to do when he was being simultaneously cursed out and cried upon.

She pulled back with a little sniff, and wiped her eyes with a quick swipe that left eyeliner streaked across her cheek.

"First of all, I didn't bribe anyone. Kirby did it for free, that adorable little nerd. It's so wrong for anyone with that many freckles to have that biceps that big, seriously. Second, I'm here because you've been gone so long you're one assignment away from qualifying from legal desertion in the state of California. Logan…" She touched his cheek and he wondered if it was possible to die of cheek touching. With as long as he'd gone without sex, cardiac arrest via cheek touch seemed like an all-too-plausible cause of death.

"I…" She stuttered. "I wanted to wait until we could talk in person, and then when you kept getting assignments, I thought it was a sign that it wasn't time yet and maybe I was a coward, and okay, maybe definitely I was a coward to keep stalling, but I was never going to dump you. I was just waiting for you to come home. And you didn't."

"You never asked me to come home. When it was optional, not my orders, I gave you the choice and you said no."

He wanted to pull back but she was tumbled into his lap in a muss of red skirts and one lost heel and he didn't want to pace badly enough to push her onto the floor to do it. Plus, she smelled a little like nutmeg, which was complex and intriguing, and the kind of earnestly festive that had never existed in his household at Christmastime. Even before the mansion that had held his household had been burned to the ground by a biker gang.

She looked at him like he was an idiot. "I didn't think I could tell you not to work when you've always, always supported what I needed to do for my career. Even on the days when you just wanted me to come home and fucking fuck you already."

He smirked. "Unquote."

Her eyes warmed a little. "I did think it was one of your more quotable moments. A Logan Echolls original."

"You could have told me not to work." He would have fucking loved for her to tell him not to work.

"I wanted to. I just…" She glanced toward the tree, then climbed to her feet. "Come here. I've been putting off this talk for months and when you said you weren't going to be home for Christmas, I kind of just lost it. I knew I couldn't wait any more, that if I did, I was going to get a third call from the hospital, and that call would be The Call."

She looked down at him, eyes searching and uncertain, and he registered for the first time that she was wearing a red, cocktail length dress with a flaring skirt and an adorable white-ribbon waistband to set off her softly curled blonde hair. He hadn't seen her wear anything but boots and leather in months, even before he left. The cynical armor of a PI setting out for the day to see the worst society had to offer.

And instead, she'd flown halfway across the world and conspired with one of his best friends to get him a tree.

"What are you smiling about?" she asked, her fidgeting fingers starting to tug the white ribbon waistband loose from its stitching.

"Just starting to catch that old holiday spirit."

He came to his feet in a quick roll, ignoring the wet spot on his ass where the ice cube had fully melted. His girlfriend blinked up at him as he draped his arms around her shoulders.

"You hate talking about your feelings."

"Um, yeah?" she said it like she was extending the word into an open bear trap, waiting for the jaws to snap closed on her.

"And you flew halfway around the world to do just that."

"Yes." She whispered it this time, her eyes darting to the floor, then the walls.

He kissed her forehead. "So let me take you out to dinner first. I bet you're starving, and I've always wanted to see the depths of depravity you might sink to when confronted with a Parisian cheese plate."

"WAIT." Her eyes flew to meet his. "Did you say cheese plate?"

He grinned. "Don't go changing, 'Ronica."

And he dipped his head to claim the first kiss he'd had in three long, long seasons.

* * *

_To be continued..._

* * *

_Author's Note: We've got one more chapter to finish this, folks. I just got the idea yesterday and I wanted to post it all in one piece but um, it's not really written yet and it's Christmas NOW and you all deserved a present so nice and Logan-shaped, so I wanted to get the story up now for your holiday binging pleasure. I'd love to hear in the comments what Christmas treats you were enjoying while you read. _

_This is my present to all of you, in thanks for the immense amount of joy and comfort your reviews and comments have brought me this year, welcoming me into this new fandom with open arms and also keeping me company during that rough two months when my husband and I were traveling separately for our jobs. Love you all, each and every one, and hope your day is magical and filled with affection._

Thanks to allthevmff on Twitter for this amazing book cover image!

_Please no spoilers in the reviews for the rest of S4. I've only seen 4x01._


	2. Chapter 2

Logan took her to the best restaurant in Paris, even though he had to call in a favor from both a four-star general and a B-grade vampire movie star to get the reservation on Christmas Eve.

Likely, neither of those men would speak to him again once word got back to them about the massacre Veronica had made of the delicately prepared selection of cheeses.

"Did you leave your fly open?" she whispered to him as the waiter departed.

"Try not to sound so hopeful, Bobcat." He smirked, lounging with his arm stretched out across the back of her seat.

"I'm just wondering why he looked at us like we'd just performed acrobatic sex acts on top of the Brie de Meaux, _before_ I even got around to performing acrobatic sex acts on top of the Brie de Meaux. Are mind-reading waiters common in France?"

She popped one of the overlooked scraps of cheese into her mouth, and washed it down with the last of her water from one of the aggressively tiny French water glasses.

He grinned, remembering her delight at the cursing cab driver on the way over. He had always known Veronica would enjoy Paris.

"I think he's upset because you didn't eat things in the proper order. Or cut them the right way."

She stared. "Cheese first, everything else later. Surely even the French still have common sense."

A couple at the next table turned to stare, and he stifled yet another laugh. "Well, here, the cheese plate comes last. You cut the round cheese into slices, you ate the _nose_ of the wedge of Saint-Nectaire first, which is terribly rude, and by the time you gobbled the soft cheeses before the mountain cheeses…" He shook his head. "Let's just say it's a good thing you came with me, because no self-respecting Frenchman would overlook this kind of behavior."

"Don't get judgy on me now, Sailor." She grabbed for her nearly untouched wineglass and downed half. "We haven't even gotten to the hard stuff yet."

"Wait, was _that _my cue to open my fly?"

She snorted mid-sip and coughed on her wine, choking a deep red stain into the impeccable linen napkin that had the waiter appearing with a scathing glare to swap it out for a fresh one.

"We'd better get back to the hotel," she said, her eyes tracking him as he stomped back to the kitchen. "I'm pretty sure that man is going to poison the both of us on the next course."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Logan sighed, remembering his June in Bangladesh. He reached for his wallet.

Another explosively cursing cab driver later, Veronica was fidgeting her way up fourteen floors of elevator ride. Logan snuck a look at her and said nothing. She'd said she wasn't here to break up with him, and there were three presents under the tree. He had, he told himself, no reason at all to be nervous.

Funny how that didn't keep him from needing multiple swipes to get the key card to work in the door. He stepped inside and something crinkled under his foot. He twitched back, frowning, only to find a string of condoms had been pushed under the door. He chuckled and bent to pocket them.

"Apparently Kirby's been here."

"Thoughtful." Veronica smiled. "Hey, what happened with him and that—"

"Broke up. Turns out, she likes the bad boys."

Veronica clucked her tongue. "I can help him with that, you know. The right jacket, the right tattoo, the right overheard phone calls from his many ex-conquests. I'll have her panting for him in no time."

"That one's not worth it, trust me." He shut the door and pocketed the condoms. "I'll send up a flare when he brings home a woman worth conning."

"See that you do. My conning skills are fully at his service, considering he saved your left leg, which I happen to be fond of."

Around September, Kirby had saved Logan's right leg, too, but they hadn't been talking much by then, so Veronica didn't know about that one.

"What's that look mean?"

He glanced away. "Nothing. Just thinking about work. So, are those presents for me, or are they just window dressing so the tree doesn't look stupid?"

Veronica started to fidget again.

He turned and swept her off her feet, pinning her against the wall so her legs went around his waist from long instinct. He tipped his forehead against hers, feeling his pulse align to exactly the same rate as hers. "Veronica."

She gave out a fluttery, half-hysterical sounding laugh. "Logan?"

"I know you had some kind of…thing…planned when you came here, but I want you to know, you don't have to go through with it."

He kissed her. Only a little, so he wouldn't get distracted.

"It's enough that you're here, enough that you're talking to me and touching me again. I know I freaked you out with that ring, rocked our boat, and upset our normal. You fucking _told_ me you never wanted to get married, and I got stupid and cocky and assumed I knew better than you did about what you wanted and—"

"You did."

She exhaled it, so softly that he barely registered how shocking it was to hear her say that.

"What?" He pulled back, just enough to see her face.

"You were right," she said. "I tore the whole apartment apart after you left, hoping you'd left that damn ring behind. So I'd have something to wear to prove you were real the whole time you were gone." She hesitated. "To prove you wanted to be with _me_, messed up, cynical, workaholic me."

He might have been gaping. He was definitely staring. "You—wanted the ring?"

"I wanted _you_, you big idiot." She kissed him so hard it hurt. "And marriage was…not something I ever thought I wanted but somehow you knew before—" She cut herself off. "Never mind that. I'm ruining the whole thing. Put me down, so I can surprise you." She pointed to the tree.

Logan tried, he really did. He was deeply curious about those three wrapped boxes he'd nearly called the bomb squad about. But he needed just one kiss before he could put her down. And then he needed to see if her hair was as soft as he remembered. And then her dress was sliding up because her legs were around his waist and…

They did make it to the tree.

But by the time they got there, they were naked, and out of breath, and passing a warm bottle of champagne back and forth because their mouths were dry after all that exercise and actual water was way too far away to be reasonably acquired.

Veronica blew a bit of wildly mussed hair out of her face and said, "New theory. Maybe it's not that I'm terrible at talking about my feelings. Maybe it's that you're too good at seeing them in my face, and then you get carried away and screw me silly before I ever get to the whole words part of the equation."

Logan considered this. Took another swig of champagne. "That tracks."

Then he perked up and gave her a sly smirk.

"But if you _wanted_ to talk about your feelings…well, then I'd be happy to distract you again."

She burst out laughing and he passed her the bottle of champagne. She set it aside without drinking and snuggled into his shoulder. He played with her fingers, trying to decide if she'd tell him if he asked.

"What, do I have something on my thumb? You keep rubbing at it."

"Little bit of cheese," he lied. And a dent around the slim digit, like something had dug so deeply into her flesh that even after it had been released it still left a mark.

He'd spent enough time on ships to know ropes could do that, if you got in an accident that caught your finger tightly enough to dig in, but not tight enough to lose the digit. But Veronica had had a pretty incident-free year—one gunshot, inflicted by her, not received by her. One kidnapping—resolved in less than an hour, only 20 minutes of trunk time. And some bruises from a fight that she won. There was always the possibility that something happened that Logan didn't know about, but he and Keith had a pretty iron-clad gentleman's agreement that if Veronica was in danger or got hurt, Logan would be notified. Regardless of whether she considered it a "big deal" enough to tell him.

Nothing had been passed along that grapevine that would explain a dent around her thumb. But then, Keith's memory was failing. Logan wasn't sure how much longer he could be trusted to keep an eye on Veronica when Logan was on assignment.

He cleared his throat and kissed Veronica's wrist, sitting up because he wasn't ready to think about contingency plans for a future where Keith Mars was no longer the clever powerhouse detective of his youth. He reached for a package but Veronica snatched it away, then traded it for a different box.

"This one first," she said.

"You do realize that since I didn't get a chance to get you presents, you should brace yourself for an embarrassing amount of me spoiling you once we get home?"

"Bracing for it? I'm counting on it." She winked. "Just make sure you start with the DIY presents. Those are my favorites."

He set the box on his knee and waited while Veronica sorted through their pile of discarded clothes and pulled on the white T-shirt he'd been wearing under his uniform. Her hair was all a tumble of loose blonde curls, and something deep and male in him rumbled its approval at the sight of her wearing his shirt.

"Wow, can't say I've ever gotten a response that enthusiastic to a Christmas present." She eyed his lap.

He shrugged, unembarrassed. "Probably you've just never had naked Christmas before."

"I'm starting to think we should institute it as a new tradition."

"It's a little perilous in terms of what Pony might lick," Logan said. "We might have to lock him in the bedroom for Naked Christmas."

Veronica snorted into laughter, and he ripped the paper off his present while she was distracted and not looking all shifty-eyed and nervous.

It was…a key card to the Camelot motel.

"Ahh, honey, you shouldn't have." He waggled it at her. "You know if you wanted a hot role-play tryst, we could just go to the Grand and do it without risking contracting Ebola."

She took a breath and met his eyes.

"I'm sorry for how I reacted when you proposed."

Logan called on years of military training to hold at steady attention and not react, but the words dug deep at him.

"I mean, it was true," she said. "I do see people tear themselves apart over marriage every day. Money, infidelity, secrets. I didn't want to be locked into something where somebody, sooner or later, cheats. But then I had this client in April. His wife cheated on him like four times, finally went to divorce her only to find out…boom. Marriage wasn't valid. She had gotten him drunk, slapped a band on his hand, and printed out a marriage certificate online just to fool him so he'd put her on his bank accounts."

Logan's shoulders sank as he listened. Dealing with people like that day in and day out, no wonder she was a little short on optimism and faith in her fellow man.

"Seriously? That's…fucked up."

"I know. But it made me realize, the problem isn't marriage. It's _people_. Some people are shit, and some aren't, and a ring doesn't cause shitty behavior, or prevent it. You…Logan, I know you would never do anything like that. This year, I didn't see you for nine months. We didn't part on the best of terms. And I _know_ you haven't been with another woman between then and now."

"Look, I told you I wasn't going to turn in a pro-level performance on the first round, but I did give you a second, if you recall…"

She smirked briefly. "Not because you came too fast. I can tell because I can tell, Logan." She paused. "Also, you had zero condoms in your hotel room except the ones your flyboy buddy passed over, and you haven't been caught anywhere without condoms since we were twelve."

He laughed. "I guess I should be grateful that the Veronica Mars motto has evolved from 'Guilty until I personally prove you innocent' to 'Trust, but verify.'"

"That was my point—I do trust! But I also register the presence of all evidence. I can't help it. Anyway." She flicked a hand. "The point is, when I was heartbroken and crying myself to sleep over you, I knew you weren't cheating on me, and marriage had nothing to do with how committed we were to each other. The people I see miserable in marriages, it's because they feel trapped. So, this is your symbolic key to the Camelot. If you're ever so dissatisfied with me that you want someone else, whether we're dating or married or made life partner promises together in one of those hippie ceremonies with a mingled kombucha toast, then you never have to lie, or sneak around. All you have to do is say the word. And you're free to go. I never want to _trap_ you into anything, Logan."

He tucked a lock of her mussed hair behind her ear. "You really cried?"

"That's all you got out of my big speech?" She rolled her eyes. "Open your second present, dick."

"Since my first was a hall pass to leave you and fuck another woman, I can't wait to see what the height of romance is for the second," he teased.

He ripped open the second box, enjoying the uneven edges and too-liberal use of tape that categorized Veronica's impatient wrapping style. In the bottom rested a business-card-sized piece of paper, face down.

"A night at the Camelot and now a Post-it. You really broke the bank for me this year, sugar snuff."

"Do you know what a last minute flight to Paris costs during the holidays, Captain Moneybags? You're lucky you're getting anything that didn't come free with my flight. Which was, respectively, flu germs, headphones circa 1992, and a persistent smell of Pine Sol."

"That's Admiral Moneybags to you, and you know I'll pay you back for your flight."

She sniffed. "If you think I'll let you, you hit that pretty head of yours a lot harder than you mentioned in your text messages."

He let the box sag back into his lap. "Veronica, if you read all my text messages often enough to quote them back to me, why didn't you answer more of them?"

Her face twisted and she re-crossed her legs, tossing a casual gesture toward the box. "Open it."

He swallowed a sigh, resolving not to be frustrated with her when she was obviously trying so hard, and also when she was looking so picture perfect with her gorgeous legs peeking out from under his shirt.

He flipped over the card in the bottom of the box. It was stolen out of an old Monopoly set, with the "Get out of Jail Free" crossed out and altered to read "Get out of Jail **Mission** Free."

He smirked. "Sweetheart, you know orders from the US Navy don't run on Monopoly money, right?"

"I know even from your very vague texts that at least half the missions you were on this year were voluntary, not ordered."

"All you had to do was ask me to come—"

"I don't know how to ask," she interrupted. "I don't know how to be supportive of this life you've chosen that I'm so, so cussing proud of you for, but also that rips my heart out every time you're gone. I don't know how…" She took a breath and met his eyes. "I hate admitting that I miss you, or that I'm not okay when you're gone. Mostly because I want to be fine when you're gone and even now, after all this practice, I'm just _not_, Logan."

He started to speak and she cut him off again.

"And I know you can't function on a mission like that, with that guilt, and I can't be the one that makes you too cautious or too hesitant in the wrong moment."

She reached and caught his hand, closing it over the card so hard it crumpled it all up.

"So, this is how you'll know. I _always_ want you to come home. If there's ever a cussing hint of an option that it's not an order, no matter how busy I seem, I am quietly dying any moment of any given day for you to come home. But if you want or need to work instead, I will always support you. This card is your reminder of that, okay?"

He nodded, because he didn't trust his voice. "I uh…" He cleared his throat. "I was trying to give you space. In case you needed to do whatever. Sometimes, if I crowd too close or need you too much, you run. After the ring and all, I didn't want you to think you had to run."

She nodded. "I was afraid it was something like that." She gestured to his closed fist. "But I missed you like crazy, Logan. I wanted you home, even when I couldn't say it. Especially when I couldn't say it."

He caught her, his hand tangling in the hair at the base of her neck as he hauled her in for a rough, desperate kiss that spoke of a million nights of fantasies about her. Of a pain that lived hollow and aching beneath his ribs and tasted of her name. Of not knowing if he was wanted in the only place on earth he could call home.

She kissed him back so hard they ended up most of the way to round three before he pulled back and whispered, "Wait. What was my third surprise?"

The first two were epic, the kind of things he constantly wished Veronica would say to him, but never did. For decades, he'd survived on fond, sideways looks that he caught when she thought he wasn't looking. On the desperation in the way her hands grasped his body. On the way she moaned louder and longer for him than he'd ever heard her do when he was awkward roommates with her high school boyfriend, Duncan.

He knew she loved him, and he still wished she'd say it out loud. It didn't take a therapist to guess that was why he'd been so hellbent on getting his ring on her finger.

And her ring on his.

Men weren't supposed to long for rings, and he'd never said a word aloud, or gone looking online for masculine wedding band designs. He didn't give a fuck if it had puppies and ribbons on it, if Veronica bought it for him, he'd wear it proudly every last day of his life.

He'd spent most of the days of the last nine months trying to let go of that deep, gnawing desire to be claimed by her.

She didn't answer his question, just glanced at the last package and cleared her throat. "I'm getting kind of hungry again, actually. Do you think anyplace would be open this late on Christmas Eve? Seems like the business hours around here are kind of wonky."

She sat up and started to gather the ripped wrapping paper and boxes, setting aside his hotel key card and Get Out of Mission Free card. Started to fold his uniform and her discarded red dress, which he thought they might have accidentally had sex on top of.

Logan laid back under the tree and linked both hands behind his head, grinning broadly as he watched her. His elbow brushed one of the branches of the tree and it tipped perilously until he reached up and caught it, righting the heavy tree easily with one hand.

That interrupted his girlfriend's fidgeting, and she laughed at him.

"Smooth, Casanova. Nothing sexier than a naked man trapped under a fallen Christmas tree."

"Laugh all you want but we all know a naked man under a Christmas tree is exactly the wish you scandalized Mall Santa with this year."

She pretended to be affronted. "What do you know about my penchant for scandalizing Mall Santa?"

"Look, honey, just because you're technically under the height limit to get in, doesn't give you a free pass to punch an elf."

"Of all the lates and greats I thought you might quote on Christmas Eve, the senior Sheriff Lamb was never one of my guesses. And for the record, if you'd heard what that elf said to me, you'd have punched him twice."

"Not arguing with that." He crooked a finger to beckon her nearer. "Though as the person who bailed you out of jail that Christmas Eve, I feel like I've earned a kiss."

She eyed him warily, her gaze flicking south before hauling itself back to his face. "You know what's going to happen if I come over there."

"Do I?" He smiled innocently.

"I think it has to do with feelings seen in faces and screwing me silly and avoidance."

"Hmm, but it might have to do with kissing and Christmas spirit," he coaxed.

She slunk back across the room, her gaze jumping all over the place until he settled her into place in his arms, staring up into the branches of the tree she'd gotten for him.

He kissed her forehead and whispered, "If you've changed your mind about the third one, I don't have to open it."

She let out a long, shaky breath, and squeezed him tighter. "And that's why I love you."

His eyes bugged out. "WTC," he muttered, her new favorite curse since she was so determined to win that bet with her dad. She rarely, so goddamn rarely ever said those words aloud. He rolled them both up to sitting, cupping her face with one hand so he could kiss her, and already tearing open the package with his other hand, because he couldn't wait for either.

She pulled away laughing at his fervent multi-tasking. "You are so ridiculous. It's like you've never gotten a present before!"

"Not ones this good," he said honestly, whipping the top off the package and there _it_ was. A ring box. His heart strangled inside his ribs like it was trying to change shape.

"Logan Echolls," she whispered, her voice strained on the words even when it was pitched low. "Will you be my husband?"

When he looked up, she was perched in front of him wearing his shirt and a few stray pine needles in her hair, just the two of them in a Paris hotel room thousands of miles from home.

He'd never fucking been happier.

"Put it…Can you…" His voice was hoarse, cracking on the simple syllables. His skin flashing hot then cold, with goosebumps raking plainly across his chest and his scalp feeling alive with electricity, like even the short hair of his buzz cut was standing on end. He'd never had all his physiology go this wild since the first time he'd had to eject from a crashing plane over the Atlantic.

He knew this question would give him entirely away, that if he ever expected her to think he had the slightest bit of dignity where she was concerned, he shouldn't say it. But he couldn't help the words scraping themselves out over his dry tongue.

"I know you're not supposed to until the—but will you put it on me now?" He was holding the box out to her in shaking hands, the cardboard crumpling under his grip.

She laughed a little, tears shining in her eyes as her glowing smile took over her whole face. "You didn't even look at it yet!"

He shook his head, not totally capable of speech. His muscles were twitching randomly, like his whole body was caught in some kind of post-orgasmic, incoherent bliss.

She opened the square box with the jeweler's logo on it, then the smaller velvet one inside.

"See?" She held it out so he could see the inside. It was some kind of brushed, matte metal. Titanium or tungsten maybe, with sort of a gunmetal finish. The inside held the black, rippling marks of a fingerprint. "It's mine," she said, touching the fingerprint. "I don't know, because evidence, or I wanted something about it that was specifically tied to me, but I thought maybe with your undercover work names weren't the best idea…anyway, it's mine," she finished. "I know you have really specific, high end taste and I don't know about fashion or quality enough to really—so if you don't like it, it's no big deal, we can get whatever you want."

His heart was kicking the fuck out of his ribcage with how much he wanted it. Her fingerprint, against his skin like she was claiming him. He fumbled for her hand, and caught that and the box all at once, kissing her so they ended up tipped over on top of her dress again, with the ring box clasped between both hands. Her body against his, her toned legs hitched up over his hips…somehow touching her made him able to breathe again, centered him so his heartbeat slowed back down to non-crisis levels, and he ran his fingertips over the groove in her thumb.

"You've been wearing it."

It wasn't a question, and he didn't even need to see that the width of the band matched the dent around her thumb. He just_ knew_, the way she knew he hadn't been with another woman all the months he'd been gone.

"Yeah," she murmured. "I did say I missed you a little bit, right? I don't think anybody knew it was meant to be your wedding band. Or maybe they did, and they were just smart enough not to say anything about it because I was so grouchy all year."

It was funny, with her sprawled across his chest and the smile back on his face, that now it seemed completely obvious that this was always how it was going to go.

That he'd ask, and she'd freak out and say "hell no" and need time to process. But that in the end, she'd come around and ask him in her own time and way, like it needed to be fully her idea for her to be okay with it. Even though he doubted she ever would have gone out on the limb to ask if he hadn't done it first, letting her know for certain she wouldn't be refused.

He hugged her tighter, tucking her face into the curve of his shoulder. The last nine months had been an especially torturous form of hell, but if he'd known she needed to refuse him so she would feel wanted enough to ask back, but also needed the time to come around to that on her own…if he'd known up front that was what she needed, he'd have suffered it gladly for her.

Of course, if he'd been thinking a little more with his head, and less with his stomped-on heart, he would have been able to guess the trajectory of all this from the beginning.

He kissed her head. "Yes," he whispered. "I will marry the ever living fuck out of you, wherever and whenever you want."

"Oh, you poetic soul," she drawled, the sarcasm in her tone not dimming the light in her eyes in the slightest. She sat up, straddling him with his erection kicking strongly against her bare leg, and sorted out the half-opened ring boxes to find his left hand. His pulse shot to jet-fighter-altitude again when he felt the smooth metal against his skin. Logan stopped breathing until she settled it into place.

He wondered if there was any way he could wear this until the wedding without taking a raft of shit from all their friends.

Then he considered if he actually gave a damn if they gave him a hard time or not. Decided he didn't.

Logan closed his hand into a fist, holding onto that ring with Veronica's fingerprint in it with all his strength. Her gaze was caught on his hand as well, and her thumb came up to trace the ring on his finger.

"Looks better on you than it did on me," she murmured, and then pulled his shirt off over her head, running a hand down his chest to grip his cock tightly in her small fist. "There's never been anybody but you for me," she whispered as he flexed thicker against her touch. "Not really, not even when I was pretending to date other people. I always knew, it just…scared me to be tied so tightly to another person. In a way that I felt like I had no control over."

"You don't like having no control," he said, fighting the urge to flip her beneath him and make love to his new fiancée until she couldn't see straight.

"I don't." She gave him the tiniest smile. "It took me this long to trust you enough to be okay with it. With how much we feel for each other. How totally…" She struggled for the right words. "_Not-optional_ it feels."

He kissed her forehead, his voice gone hoarse again when he said, "I'm glad that you trust me, now."

"You earned it way before now," she told him, her smile crooked. "I'm just slow."

"Cautious," he corrected, giving in to the urge to flip her beneath him and prowling up over her glorious, naked body. "And smart. I wasn't always worth trusting, no matter how much I wanted to be."

She nuzzled into his neck, so her next words fell so softly he wasn't totally sure if he'd imagined them. "But you were always worth loving..."

Logan made love to his future wife underneath the Christmas tree, with the lights of Paris shining through the windows. And for every second of it, the new ring on his finger thrilled happiness through his whole body. He was hers, for good. Finally, finally hers.

He hadn't entirely caught his breath from that round, and was beginning to idly consider carrying her to bed for the next round, when there was a battering knock at the door. He glanced over at the strip of condoms Kirby had left, a bit concerned to find there was only one left. He needed to get some friends with the proper respect for his stamina.

Veronica groaned, hiding her face in his abs, and he patted her back and rolled to sitting, muttering, "Please be Kirby with more condoms."

The banging started up again. "Open up, Pretty Boy! The Mackster spilled the beans on Paris, and tracked you down to this hotel, and you and me both know your girlfriend's too cheap to fly out here when you've only got three days for Christmas so…" More banging ensued. "It's ho ho ho and a bottle of rum for us, bro!"

Veronica rolled her eyes and reached over to put on Logan's shirt again. "Please tell me that's not Dick."

Logan tried not to laugh. "Oh, it's definitely Dick."

When no one answered, Dick knocked more tentatively. "Dude, okay, of course it's actually three bottles of rum. That just didn't rhyme or whatever. I already told you, I'm not the cheap one who didn't show up for your ass. And if you're in there moping or whatever, you know, I've been in Neptune this whole time and word on the street is Veronica's been kicking ass and taking names, not taking dick and kicking…well, anyway, cheap or not, it seems like she's moping, too. So stop worrying and open up, asshat, it's fucking Christmas."

Veronica had a hand clapped to her mouth, her eyes watering from the effort of trying to hold back her giggles. "Oh my god, please open the door before I die of laughter."

"You want me to let Dick Casablancas into our hotel room? When you're not wearing pants?"

"What can I say? I'm a sucker for anybody who flies this far to spend Christmas with you." She kissed him on the cheek and scampered over to the door, waiting until Logan hauled on his uniform pants and got them zipped.

Then she threw open the door.

"Guess what? I got here before you,_ and _I put a ring on it!" She stuck out her tongue at a flabbergasted Dick. "Who's the cheap one now, Casablancas?"

* * *

The End

* * *

_Author's Note: If you'd like more S4 fixes, I tackle fixing 4x02 in Let It Be Me!_


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